BEGINNER’S LUCK

Lloyd’s mailbag is constantly brimming with letters
wanting to know how you go about getting homegrown software published. The
producer of most debut-programmer games is almost certainly Mastertronic.
CRASH talked to Mastertronic’s Andrew Wright and asked him exactly what
happens when your entrusted package lands on the doormat of their London
offices...

At the end of a dark alleyway,
off London’s famous Portobello Road antique market, lies the Virgin
Mastertronic offices

When Mastertronic started off in 1984 they weren’t the first
to promote budget soft ware, CCS had already tried that, but they were
certainly the first with the marketing muscle and sheer quantity to make a
success of it. At that time, a lot of the smaller software houses were going
bust, providing a rich source of cheap games to launch Mastertronic’s budget
range. But at the same time Mastertronic were interested in getting games from
first-time programmers. There was little delay in these arriving, and the
cardboard box where the games were filed on arrival was soon dubbed the ‘Magic
Postbox’.

Five years on, the budget market has become massive, with budget titles
usually dominating the Gallup top twenty. A sizeable proportion of these games
are written by new programmers, and indeed this is virtually their only hope of
getting published. With the near extinction of smaller, independent software
houses most full-price software is now published by larger companies like US
Gold and Ocean, which rely on established programming teams. Moreover, these
software houses tend to base games on big licenses, and expect any full-price
release to be available on all formats — maximising the effect of
advertising.

But if getting a game published full-price is vastly more difficult now than
in 1984, the opportunities of getting a budget game release are much better —
although the standards are rising all the time. To attract more games
Mastertronic made the ‘Magic Postbox’ nickname official six months ago, with ads
in all Mastertronic’s budget releases. As a result, the number of games
arriving has increased to around thirty per week on all formats.

Spoiled for choice

When a game arrives in the Mastertronic offices it’s usually
loaded that same day by David George, Mastertronic’s 17-year-old
playtester. The selection process begins: the biggest cause of rejection is
simply that the game won’t load! Games will also be rejected if they use a
utility like Incentive’s Graphic Adventure Creator, or the Shoot ’Em
Up Construction Set on the C64. Similarly an indifferent Manic Miner
clone will soon be sent back to its creator. All games received by Mastertronic
are returned, even if they lack enclosed postage, together with a form letter
of rejection — or a note explaining that it wouldn’t load.

Some games, however, are so obviously excellent that it’s obvious they’re
right for the label. In that case Budget Labels Product Manager, Andrew
Wright, will phone the programmer the next day and try to arrange a
contract.

More often, promising games are put in a box to be put through a slightly
more formal review procedure. These are held whenever there’s enough games to
justify a meeting. Besides Andrew and David, also present are the software
producers; Tony Smith, Andy Green, Alex Martin and Nicole
Baikioff. These four are responsible for overseeing the development of
‘outside’ programs, a job they are particularly well suited for as they used to
be the Gang of Four — who wrote Dan Dare (92%, Issue 32) and
Dan Dare II (74%, Issue 49). The marketing department may also be
consulted.

Quite often a game may be brilliantly playable, but still be rejected
because it isn’t likely so sell. According to Andrew, kids ‘want
guns’n’violence. What’s hot now are ninjas, skateboards, death and tie-ins.’
One Gauntlet-type game was rejected by Andrew as being old hat, but Code
Masters picked it up and made it more attractive by slapping a ‘ninja’ title on
the game. Substantial changes to gameplay are rarely considered. The quantity
of games submitted is such that Mastertronic has no time for promising games
which need more than minimal changes. Some games require nothing more than the
signing of the contract before being published, other games require gameplay to
be tweaked.

A gentleman’s word...

The essential point of a contract is the signing over of the
programmer’s copyright to the publisher — in this case Mastertronic. As Lloyd
pointed out last month, whether you write a computer program, a book or a song
you automatically have copyright on it — the sole right to make copies. The
only problem is how do you prove in a court of law that you actually are
the programmer, if someone does make copies. The cheapest way is simply to
enclose your program in a package, seal the package securely and send it by
registered delivery to yourself. As long as the package isn’t opened it should
prove you had a copy of the program on the post marked date — weeks before Mr X
claimed to have written it.

With a new programmer Mastertronic will usually ask that the copyright be
sold to them forever, more established programmers may set a limit of a couple
of years after which they get the copyright back. In return for getting the
copyright Mastertronic will promise to pay a royalty on every copy of the game
they sell. On average your royalties will amount to several thousand
pounds!

Typically a publisher will offer an advance on this money to keep the
programmer happy until the game is published. Advances vary substantially from
programmer to programmer, and all have to be paid out of the eventual
royalties, but they are not returnable — if the games doesn’t sell, you don’t
have to give the advance back.

As part of the contract, Mastertronic usually ask for worldwide copyright,
so they can sell the game abroad as well. If you want you could exclude a
certain country, but this could reduce your advance and obviously decrease the
amount of money you stand to make from Mastertronic sales. Mastertronic offer
good opportunities to authors over US publication since they directly publish
in the US, so the author gets his royalty cut direct. If the game were
published by another publisher, he’d only get X% of the UK publisher’s X% cut
of the US publisher’s revenue.

Sadly, however, the US market for Spectrum games is virtually nonexistent —
which brings up the subject of conversions. If a title is suitable for other
machines, Mastertronic could suggest conversions — these are particularly
useful for boosting a game’s chart position. If you can’t write the conversions
yourself you could allow Mastertronic to have them written. When these are
published you’ll get royalties on them too — after the cost of conversions has
been taken out.

Mastertronic argue they offer a very good deal, and if a programmer won’t
accept Andrew often gives phone numbers and contact names at other software
houses.

Getting it taped... legally

If a game is perfect as it is, and no conversions are
required, it can be rushed onto the streets in three week’s time. Artwork can
be done in a day or so, although some take longer, and sometimes an inlay will
be dropped on the verge of being printed — as happened with Advanced Soccer
Simulator.

Most games require tweaking though, and sometimes title music will be
required. If the original programmer cannot provide this it may be written by a
freelance musician. In fact potential binary maestros are welcome to submit
material to Mastertronic for this very purpose. Graphic artists, however, are
unlikely to be used as this is expected of the original programmer.

Once a game is published the programmer can continue writing budget games,
or even full-price ones, sometimes going on to be a part of established
programming houses like Binary Design. More common, however, is the teenager
who writes one game then goes on to college or university where there’s no
spare time to write another game. Star Farce (58%, Issue 61) was
apparently programmed two years before its release as a version of the arcade
game Star Force. When its programmer was down on his grant at university
he simply improved the graphics then sent it in. He has no plans to write
anything else.

Time for dinars

One company which deals with many of Mastertronic’s
conversions is Activemagic, which serves as an intermediary between four
Yugoslavian programming teams and British software companies.

The head of the company is a former engineer in Yugoslavia’s merchant navy —
Milan Stajcic. After emigrating to the UK, Milan got a job with
Mastertronic as merchandising manager. He left Mastertronic just eighteen months
ago with the aim of setting up Activemagic.

According to the Yugoslavian government there are around a million personal
computers in the country, over half of which are in the home. Of these between
fifty and sixty per cent are Spectrums, most of which have been bought by
people visiting neighbouring European countries. Buying a Spectrum in
Yugoslavia would cost about three times as much as in Britain.

At the moment the biggest software publisher in the country is Suzy Soft, a
subsidiary of the State record publisher. Its games cost around £1.50, but
by far the most popular tapes are illegal compilations of pirated Western
games. Obviously this doesn’t do much to support the publishing of more and
better games, and Milan is trying to stop it by putting pressure on the
computer’s three computer magazines. Already one of the magazines has stopped
carrying ads for pirated material, and the result should soon follow suit.

The first Western games to be legally published in Yugoslavia are
Mastertronic’s, who have recently signed a deal with Activemagic for the latter
to handle distribution of all their products throughout Eastern Europe. Games
for Yugoslavia will be produced by Ljubljana, one of Yugoslavia’s ten TV
companies, and will have identical packaging to the UK versions apart from
Yugoslavian text. Once a proper budget market has been established, Milan hopes
to bring out full-price games, for which there’s potentially a very large
market.

Football crazy

The author of Mastertronic’s latest football game is
Steven Hannah, a 19-year old native of Kilbride, Scotland. Steven
started programming five years ago when he first bought his Spectrum, and has
started writing numerous games but the only one he’s completed is Advanced
Soccer Simulator (reviewed this issue). This was originally a BASIC game,
which was rewritten in machine code to make better use of memory, up the
graphic standard and generally speed things up. This version was completed by
late ’87.

Getting the game published, however, ended up taking longer than the
programming. Firebird rejected the game, and when Mastertronic didn’t respond
after a few week Steven thought they had too. Then Andrew Wright phoned to
offer a contract. Apart from a few tweaks to gameplay, and a change of title,
the game was ready to be published. At one stage review copies of the game were
sent out, but then withdrawn when the release date was moved back to allow the
cover art to be redone.

Computer mad

One of the latest, and best budget puzzle games is
Mindtrap (reviewed this issue) and was written by a 17-year-old
Yugoslavian named Predrag Beciric. The title comes from when Predrag
first had a Spectrum, ‘the whole of my family, in which I include a dog, kept
telling me the computer is a trap which will eventually trap my mind’. This
seems to be true since, apart from the Sex Pistols and Art of Noise, Predrag
claims to be only interested in computers. The computer he most wants, apart
from a Cray, is Steve Job’s NeXT machine complete with optical disk. Unlike
Steven Hannah, he remains enthusiastic about games, and hopes to eventually set
up his own software house. His favourite game is Atic Atac, and at the
moment he’s working on a conversion for Activemagic.